


I can't fly but I can soar

by thequietcanadian



Series: Fair Game Weekend 2020 [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Fair Game Weekend (RWBY), Faunus Qrow Branwen, M/M, Morning Cuddles, Panic Attacks, Scars, Short One Shot, brief mentions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26806609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequietcanadian/pseuds/thequietcanadian
Summary: Fair Game weekend 2020: ScarsClover has a habit of tracing Qrow's scars, his curious about the two matching ones on his back, Qrow isn't quite sure how to explain them, but he's willing to try.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi
Series: Fair Game Weekend 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953250
Comments: 1
Kudos: 45





	I can't fly but I can soar

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! day two is here! Hope you enjoy and if you do check out some of my other works too! If you have time please leave a review if you can. they make my day!

Qrow wakes up to the feeling of fingertips softly sweeping over the plains of his back. They slowly trace over the small scars that litter his slower back and he can’t help but let out a sigh of contentment as he buries his face into Clover’s pillow. Qrow thinks he could get used to this. Used to the warm bedsheets and the smell of Clover’s that wraps itself around his senses. Lazy mornings spent curled up and cuddling. But alas good things must come to an end. Qrow knows when Clovers reached his largest scars when his fingers hesitate on the jagged edges of it, Clover runs his hand over it, and Qrow can’t help the way he tenses up under the contact. Clovers ministrations stop halfway through them, hand retreating. He knows the question he’s going to ask before he even opens his mouth.  
“How’d you get these ones?” Qrow opens his eyes shifting onto his side to meet the curious teal staring down at him. Qrow didn’t know how to answer him. Very few people knew about them. Summer his sister both gone now. Its not because Qrow wanted to hide them, but the memories themselves were awful, and the only people who were deserving enough to know it had been the people he trusted the most. But Qrow supposed it was about time he told Clover, they’d been together long enough to discern that Clover wouldn’t judge him for them, wouldn’t make any unnecessary comments. That was the good thing about Clover, he had a good sense of when to speak and when to listen, a rare trait that few people utilised.  
Still though, Qrow didn’t know how to tell Clover exactly, only knew he needed to be honest. Sighing, Qrow flipped over onto his back, covering his face with an arm as if it could protect him from what he was about to say.   
“I could fly once” Qrow can hear the quiet tick of the clock as he waits for Clover to say something, he won’t continue until he does, knows that this wasn’t the easiest information to digest.   
“you can fly now” Clover finally says into the too quiet room. Qrow wants to laugh he can, technically but not in the way he once could. He was grateful for the gift Oz had given them all those years ago, but it wasn’t the same. Qrow flew in the mindset of a bird. Able to hear and remember what he’d heard as a human, but it wasn’t the same. The rush of air swooping through the air thousands of feet above the ground, the drop his stomach would make when he’d curl in his wings and drop, stopping mere meters from the ground. He didn’t feel that as a bird, they didn’t have the same sense of impending danger, it was almost boring real with the way it felt. Almost like breathing, natural, mundane. Dull. It didn’t have the same affect.   
“No Clover. Not like that.” Qrow sat up, sitting in front of Clover.   
“rest your hands on them” Clover obeyed gingerly pressing his hands to them until he could tell Qrow didn’t mind the touch, before adding a bit more pressure. Slowly Qrow breathed out before purposefully making the powerful muscles underneath to move. Picturing how if they were still there, how he’d make them flex and move for the man behind him. Qrow came back to himself and heard Clover draw in a breath, before leaning forward and delicately placing a kiss on either scar.  
“what happened?” Qrow closed his eyes, picturing it. The way he’d been pulled up first by the left wing, pulled at an uncomfortable angle, before his right had been given the same treatment. How his parents had screamed for forgiveness. How the tribe had stared on and watch with no pity in their eyes.  
“Some bad luck on my part” Clover stilled behind him before he leaned forward resting his chin on his shoulder.   
“your deflecting” Qrow knew he was too, but the memories were clamoring for attention and Qrow didn’t know where to start and he could already feel the headache forming in the back of his head, and it was getting harder to think as panic began to race its way through his body and and-  
“Breath pretty bird” Qrow gasps as he takes in a lungful of air, before he’s taking another, Clover turns him around, pulling him into his lap, before he’s grabbing Qrow’s hand and resting it on his chest.   
“with me okay Qrow” Clover takes a breath before slowly releasing it, and Qrow does his best too copy it. It takes him a moment, but he calms down enough where he doesn’t feel like he’s dying.  
“you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to” Qrow looks up to see, understanding in Clovers eyes.   
“I want too” Qrow reached up, resting his hands on either side of Clovers face, before leaning in and resting their foreheads together, closing his eyes a small act of trust.  
“I want too” Qrow repeated his lips ghosting over Clover’s as he spoke. A reminder he supposed that he was here in the present and not in the past. Taking a shaky breath Qrow began speaking.  
“When I was younger, my parents… They upset the chief. To punish them they ripped the wings off my back. Teach them a lesson” Qrow didn’t tell Clover how long it took, or how it took ages too heal. How the ghost of his wings still haunted him every once and awhile with phantom pain. He wasn’t ready to tell him that yet.  
“I’m sorry” Clover said after a moment, arms wrapping around Qrow and holding him close.   
“what are you sorry for?”  
“that shouldn’t have happened to you” Qrow shrugged his shoulders, Qrow had seen much worse when he was in the tribe, he was loath to say it but he was lucky that, that was all they’d done.  
“besides, Raven killed the bastard a few years later.” Qrow wasn’t there when it had happened had only found out because the bounty on his head had disappeared from the hunts in mistral. It hadn’t been long after Qrow had reminded her of it. By accident of course, his shoulders had a tendency to ache when it rained and he’d mentioned it offhand. It didn’t take much to put two and two together.  
“you could get prosthetics you know? Pietro’s Atlas’s greatest mind I bet he could-”  
“No” Qrow said simply, it wouldn’t be the same. The breeze wouldn’t ruffle his feathers, he wouldn’t be able to feel the muscles shift beneath his skin and they’d drag him down through the sky if they broke. No Qrow knew he wouldn’t fly like that again.  
“its okay Clover” Qrow snuggled closer into the man, pulling him back down into the bed.   
“I’ve found other ways to soar”


End file.
